2017-18 Season Artist Feature

A BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH DARIAN DAUCHAN

Darian Dauchan is more of a Marvel guy than a DC guy. He told us so one afternoon behind the Captain America door handles of Union Square’s Forbidden Planet, where he walked among the comic books, discussing the beauty of creating a universe (“That notion is super fascinating to me”), the different kinds of time travel (He’s partial to “time reboot,” where the past can be changed to create an alternate present), and the politics of X-Men. In The Brobot Johnson Experience, he plays a time-hopping robotic ambassador from another planet, a planet whose continents are divided based on the four elements of hip-hop: DJ-ing, MC-ing, break dancing, and graffiti-ing. “How many robots of color are there?” he asked while holding up a large model of his favorite Star Wars robot, K-2SO (not one). “We did some intense workshops, and made an image board for inspiration. We definitely had George Clinton and Parliament up there. We had Sun Ra up there. And then I threw in LL Cool J.” He describes the set of the show as a “boombox spaceship.” Like virtually all big-name comic heroes, Brobot is also a transmedia experience; it’s not limited to one form. Thus far, there’s been an album, a web series, and, soon, a theatrical performance. At Forbidden Planet, Darian stood for a while, staring at a line of small figurines -- the kind a kid might fall in love with and then lose between the couch cushions. “Everyone’s like what’s the endgame? I’m like…Could there be a brobot action figure?”